Have you heard the story? Seems one day God was looking down at the earth and saw all the rascally behavior going on, so he called one of his angels and sent him to earth for a time. When the angel returned, he told God ‘Yes, it’s bad down there—95% are misbehaving and only 5% are not.’ God sent another angel down for a second opinion too. When that angel returned he went to God and said, ‘Yes, it’s true. The earth is in decline—95% are misbehaving, but 5% are being good.’ Well, let me tell you, God was not pleased, but He figured He needed to at least send an e-mail to the 5% who were good, to encourage them and give them a few points for comfort as well as advice. Do you know what that e-mail said? ……… Okay, I was hoping you did, because I didn’t get one either.

Nobody’s perfect, not even the 5% who are behaving. Certainly no country under the canopy of heaven has a monopoly on ‘truth, justice and’—well, maybe on ‘the American way.’ But you know what I mean. Even conceding the point that Americans are pretty good all and all; and notwithstanding what they say about good intentions, Americans have always had them. It still reminds me of the knight-errant set upon his quest, to rescue that fair (or unfair) maiden—whether she wants to be rescued or not!

I hope you realize I’ve been playing something of a devil’s advocate to get us to think through a few things. Because even if we do presume to know the change we’d like to see in other countries, from the standpoint of our own interest, we still face the problem of knowing whom it is we seek to change and also how. You see causing change to something or somebody presumes knowledge of how things are, how people and cultures are in the status quo, and something about the dynamic processes affecting them.

Besides the terrific overreach in terms of American power and U.S. objectives abroad, I would argue that a more fundamental problem has been going about our objectives without the slightest appreciation for the people and cultures we’re seeking to change! In that spirit, I want offer a few points that may shed light on a different part of the world than ours, and on people who are very different from most Americans. "We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto" or in Central Texas either.

"Lawrence of Arabia" or T.E. Lawrence was a British officer, who succeeded with the Arabs exquisitely on behalf of Allied interests, but he did so by understanding them, treating them with respect, influencing and changing behavior and action from the context of who they were, not whom he or the British Government thought they should be. Some of his words of advice, written in 1917 are every bit as salient today. To begin with, he said that to succeed with Arabs, "we have got to put into it all the interest and skill we possess." It isn’t an amateur sport. Rather, "…the secret of handling Arabs is unremitting study of them." It takes more listening and indirect inquiry to get to know them and to move their decisions, and much less in the way of directive content and tone; "Formal visits to give advice are not so good as the constant dropping of ideas in casual talk." Whether formal or not, "Allusion is more effective than logical exposition: they dislike concise expression," he wrote.

"Handling Arabs is an art, not a science, with exceptions and no obvious rules," Lawrence said. And while it may be "difficult to keep quiet when everything is being done wrong," if you don’t lose your temper you’ll gain the advantage. "The less apparent your interferences the more your influence." "Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly" for them. Then as now, "It is their war, and you are [there] to help them, not to win it for them." And in point of fact, under the "odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as…you think it is." The art, as such, is in making the Arab decision maker think that your ideas were his all along—or at least, in not making it appear to anyone else beside himself, the ideas were yours. This is exactly the way it is today for those engaged in military advisory missions in the Middle East.

Now this may sound a bit inefficient, convoluted, harder than it has to be to an American ear. Well, it is inefficient, often convoluted, but every bit as hard as it has to be if you’re going to win influence, change hearts and minds, and get them to agree to do something you want. Some folks, judging everything from a post-modern American perspective, think dealing this way is somehow an exercise in political correctness beneath the dignity of the world’s only remaining superpower. Well, I can assure you T.E. Lawrence was not politically correct; and no pansy either, whether or not his sexuality is still under some dispute. He was simply describing how to accomplish Western aims in a particularly alien environment.

Wes Riddle is a retired military officer with degrees and honors from West Point and Oxford. Widely published in the academic and opinion press, he ran for U.S. Congress (TX-District 31) in the 2004 Republican Primary. Article based on remarks to Salado Lions Club (Noon Group) at the Civic Center in Salado, Texas (11 June 2008).

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